Old School Americana & Nostalgia

News

This Poor Guy’s $20K Ford Model A Was Totaled Due To A Serious 21st Century Issue

This Poor Guy’s $20K Ford Model A Was Totaled Due To A Serious 21st Century Issue

1931 Model A | Wikimedia Commons

The Ford Model A may be the most iconic car of the first half of the 20th Century. Henry Ford famously resisted it for years when his sales team was begging to replace Ford’s other icon, the Model T. Henry Ford relented in 1927 and by 1932, when Ford ended production of the Model A, they had created nearly 5 million of them.

Today, very few survive and those that do are treated with the utmost respect by their owners. Such was the case of William Smith and his father, who had painstakingly rebuilt a Model A that had been in the family for 45 years. What a beautiful sight to see it must have been. Beautiful, until a woman texting in a generic, boring mid-2000s Toyota barreled into the classic car, totaling it.

It’s almost too much to look at. The sight of a dull, modern sedan painted Dull Blue stuck to an elegant Ford Model A in a mess of twisted metal and plastic. It’s enough to bring a grown man to tears. The backstory only makes things worse.

The car is owned by William Smith and his family. It’s been in the family for 45 years when it was first given to Smith’s father as a birthday present in 1973. The father and son combo recently completed a full restoration, bringing the beautiful car back to life together; it was something they were both very proud of.

Then, in a matter of moments, a woman drifted too far and…BAM! She crashed, bending the frame and the driveshaft, splitting the engine block and sending the hood flying ten feet into the grass! The crash also damaged all four wheels and cracked the engine block. It pretty much destroyed the car.

And then it got worse.

Source: William Smith

According to The Drive, it turned out that driver wasn’t wasted but texting. Image that. A car that personifies the Industrial Revolution being totaled because of a ridiculous problem that personifies the Information Age.

What’s worse is that the woman, after surveying the damage, got back into her car and tried to flee. Because of the mess she made though, the cars were locked together by the twisted metal and modern plastic. After realizing she wasn’t going to extract her car, she extracted herself and took off on foot.

The police tracked her down quickly, but the news for William Smith got worse.

Source: William Smith

It turns out, in another cruel twist, the texting woman only carried the minimum insurance required by law, $5000. So that’s all Smith is going to get from the insurance company; $5000 measly bucks for a car that could fetch up to $30K or more! But that value pales in comparison to the sentimental value to Smith and his family, which is worth much, much more.

Let’s hope that the distracted driver is punished for her bad judgment and let’s all remember to put our phones down while we drive!